Michael S. Neiberg

On his book Dance of the Furies: Europe and the Outbreak of World War I

Cover Interview of August 21, 2011

In a nutshell

Dance of the Furies is an attempt to understand 1914 by taking a wider view of European society. Instead of focusing on the perhaps dozen or so men whose decisions brought the continent to war in that fateful summer, I focus on the reactions of the millions of people who were never consulted, but whose participation was necessary to conduct war.

I argue that the vast majority of people in Europe neither sought nor welcomed war. They accepted it because of their fundamental belief that their nation’s war was defensive and therefore just. Their responses show remarkable similarity across gender, class, and nationality. Propaganda, fear, and the incredible speed with which the assassination of an obscure nobleman led to war contributed to the widespread sense of disorientation and helplessness that gripped Europe in those fateful days.

Nationalist hatreds, imperial rivalries, and longstanding mistrusts surely existed in 1914. But they were insufficient to cause a continental war.

The blame for the war falls to the mismanagement of the statesmen and diplomats who thought they could profit from the minor predicament—crisis is far too strong a word—caused by the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand without resorting to war. By the time they realized their enormous mistake, it was too late.

This contrast between the minor causes of the war and its massive, worldwide effects helps to explain the overwhelming sense of tragedy that surrounds World War I.

The people of Europe were now stuck in a war they had not caused, but equally one they could not stop. The total war of 1914 had already produced a conflict that could only end with a total peace. Thus Europeans knew that the only possible course of action was to fight on. The only future worse than a future of war was a future of defeat.

The first few months of the war produced atrocities on all sides, unprecedented levels of casualty, and massive disruption of stable societies. In some places, most notably Germany, Russia, and Austria-Hungary, the lies and misjudgments of the regimes were so vast that revolution eventually resulted. The war also produced hatreds sufficient to leave behind them fascism, genocide, and an even more terrible war a generation later.

In a nutshell, I argue that the hatreds of the murderous 20th century were a product, not a cause, of World War I.

The dominant premise in evolution and economics is that a person is being loyal to natural law if he or she attends to self’s interest and welfare before being concerned with the needs and demands of family or community. The public does not realize that this statement is not an established scientific principle but an ethical preference. Nonetheless, this belief has created a moral confusion among North Americans and Europeans because the evolution of our species was accompanied by the disposition to worry about kin and the collectives to which one belongs.Jerome Kagan, Interview of September 17, 2009

[T]he Holocaust transformed our whole way of thinking about war and heroism. War is no longer a proving ground for heroism in the same way it used to be. Instead, war now is something that we must avoid at all costs—because genocides often take place under the cover of war. We are no longer all potential soldiers (though we are that too), but we are all potential victims of the traumas war creates. This, at least, is one important development in the way Western populations envision war, even if it does not always predominate in the thinking of our political leaders.Carolyn J. Dean, Interview of February 01, 2011